


Second best

by Spidermansalterego



Category: Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, One-Sided Relationship, mentions of shawn/cory and shawn/cory/topanga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:03:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spidermansalterego/pseuds/Spidermansalterego
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katy reflects on why it is her and Shawn won't work out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second best

It’s not a surprise, really, that Shawn Hunter is, was and always will be, too good to be true. This is the exact reason she’s been guarding herself around him, and the exact reason they won't work out. It’s not like she was in love with him or anything, but it still stings a little to know that she never will be. It hurts to know that once again, she’s not the heroine of the story, Cory Matthews is. And wow, that’s weird to think. 

She’s not sure how to go about confronting him. She can’t just blurt out “Hey, you’re in love with your best friend, we should probably break off whatever it is that’s been happening between us” no matter how much she wants to.  She imagines Maya’s face when she tells her she’s no longer dating the Dad Of Her Dreams, and for a moment, she hates Shawn for making her do that to her little girl.   
  
Rationally, She knows this isn’t really Shawn’s fault. From the looks of it, and the sounds of it, this isn't a spur of the moment, little crush that will burn itself out in the a few weeks or months. No, she’s pretty sure this is a love that is rooted deep, deep down. Dating back to Philadelphia nights spent in Cory’s childhood home, warm days spent as entirely different people; people Katy will never know. She's not even sure if his own feelings are on Shawn's radar, if he's even aware of how deep his feelings for his best friend runs. She wonders if he'll ever realize or if he'll spend the rest of his life in denial.

Mostly, she feels bad for him. He's in deep and she thinks he might be too far gone to ever be pulled out. She'd love to be the thing that knocks him out of it, to be the person who saves him from himself, but she's pretty sure he's happy to be drowning as long as it's with Cory. She can see it in his eyes when he looks at him, hear it in his voice when he talks about him. He is undoubtedly, undeniably, 100% in love with Cory Matthews, and no amount of distance, time, or pretty girls distracting him, will ever change that.

She knows she has to keep him around, for Maya's sake, but God, it would be so much easier if he would have just run away like the rest of them. If he was the scumbag prototype she's used to and not this super nice guy who wants to give her daughter the world but can't bring himself to see Katy as anything more than Maya's mom. Even if he wasn't the father figure Maya's been craving it's not like she can just cut out Maya's best friend's family, either. She'll be stuck seeing Shawn Hunter for the rest of her life, and she's just going to have to accept that if it means making her daughter happy. It would be so much easier if he could just love her. He’s good at pretending, she'll give him that, but she won’t settle for second best. Not now, not ever. No matter how much she wants to fall into ignorant bliss with the hot writer who is enamoured with her kid, she refuses to. She has some pride. 

Topanga isn't much help either, simply stating that "That's just Cory and Shawn. They're like that." She'd love to have someone to vent to about it, someone who understands what its like to be second best to Cory and Shawns little thing, but Topanga isn't like that. She's too blinded by what she's accustom to, to see what's right in front of her. Or perhaps she's not even second best, maybe she's included. Maybe it always has been Cory and Shawn and Topanga, and it always will be. Maybe Cory is capable of being in love with both his wife and his best friend, and maybe Topanga is okay with that. Cory might just be the type of person who's capable of loving two people with all of himself. Cory just has an endless amount of all encompassing love to give out; maybe he can truly give his heart and soul to both Topanga and Shawn without losing himself or one of them in the process. She envies him for that. She envies all of them.

Shawn isn't the type of person who can love more than one person with all of himself. Maybe if she had been there from the start, had been in the right place, in the right time, they could have worked. But here, in this universe, they cannot, for one reason and one reason only: Cory Matthews. No, there's only one person Shawn is capable of loving with all of himself, there's only one person on earth that Shawn is undoubtedly here for, and that ain't her. There's only one person who can make him feel whole, who can make him complete and content even on the darkest of days, and Katy knows in her heart, that she can't ever be that person. Not for him.

No matter how hard he pretends, no matter how many times he insists that she is the one person that he wants or how much he wishes it were true, she can't believe it. She won't believe it. Shawn can live in denial for however long he pleases, until it destroys him inside and out, but she won't be the one to hold his hand and enable it. She will never be enough for him, she will never be _it._

No matter how much she wishes she could be.


End file.
